Microsoft Stock Essay

After launching its Initial Public Offering in 1986, Microsoft entered the stock market at a price of $21. The common stock of the firm is listed under the symbol MSFT and traded on the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Market Capitalization…

Market capitalization is the value, at market price, of all the shares representative of a company.

It’s actually equal to the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the share price.

With a market capitalization of $481,84 billion (2016-12-11), Microsoft is in the top 3 most valuable companies in the world with Apple and Alphabet.

Type of stock…

- As we have seen during the class, we talk about a blue-chip stock when it’s a stock of a large, well-established, and financially strong company (see course’s slides).

Shareholders…

Beside the famous people we all know, such as Steven Ballmer, Bill Gates… who own millions of shares, institutional investors represent the largest investor group, holding about 75% of shares outstanding.

The 10 biggest investors hold about 27% of shares outstanding.

Top 3 biggest shareholders

- The Vanguard Group, Inc.: 6,6% of shares outstanding.

Vanguard Group is an American investment fund company which manage more than US $3 trillion in assets in nearly 70 companies. The Vanguard Group holds shares in companies such as Monsanto, Exxon, Time Warner, Dow Chemical, and Foxconn.

It’s also Apple's second largest shareholder, with 4.3%, or about $23 billion.

- Capital World Investors: 4,2% of shares outstanding.

Capital World Investors is a subsidiary of The Capital Group Companies, Inc. which is one of the 3 largest pension fund management organizations in the world with Fidelity Investments and the Vanguard Group.

- BlackRock Fund Advisors: 3,5% of shares outstanding.

BlackRock Fund Advisors is a subsidiary of BlackRock, Inc. which is an American global investment management corporation. The company manage $5.1 trillion in assets in more than 100

It varies according to supply and demand, with a moderating system to avoid fluctuations more or less erratic.

Having a stock value isn’t interesting if it’s not represented into a graphic showing the evolution over a specific period. The figure just below shows the evolution of the stock value over 5 years.

As we can see, the stock value has increased a lot during the last few years.

Even when we look at the historical chart of the stock value, it’s quite easy to state that the company has been doing well for years.

Since the worldwide economic recession in 2009, which had strong consequences on the financial performances of companies all over the world, including Microsoft, the stock value is constantly increasing.

Furthermore, on the 21st of October 2016, Microsoft stock has beaten its previous record of $58.72, reached in December 1999.

The stock value is still increasing since that moment, up to a current value of $62.58.

Dividend…

Every year, Microsoft pays a quarterly dividend in December, March, June, and September.

In 2017, the company will pay a quarterly dividend of $0.39 per